It Was In The Past
by alphaangel
Summary: Post No Human's Involved 'fic.


My attempt at a post No Human's Involved fic. Please review.

**I****t Was In The Past**

She was slumped on the sofa when she heard the knocking at her front door. Her television was on but the sound was muted, she had been staring at the changing pictures. She sighed, glad the television was on mute so that whoever had knocked couldn't hear it, she didn't have the strength to get up and answer it.

The knock was repeated and eventually she stood and looked through the whole in the door to see who was standing there. Nick. He had turned so that he was stood with his back to the door but she still recognised him.

She removed the chain and unlocked the door before pulling it open. Hearing the lock being pulled back, he had turned so that he was facing her by the time she got the door open.

"Hi." He said with his usual charming smile. "Can I come in?"

She opened her mouth to say no, to tell him that she was busy but found herself nodding and standing back to let him in.

"You left the lab in a hurry, seemed a bit down. Just wanted to check you were alright." He said as she shut the door behind him. She noticed that he had a pizza box and a six pack of beer in his hands. "Thought we could have a chat, and a drink, and a slice of pizza?" He said smiling again at her.

"Sit down." She said smiling back at him. He could see that the smile was weary, she looked tired, like she had given up.

Nick put the pizza box down on the coffee table and opened it. "No meat?" Sara said in a slightly surprised voice.

"Of course." He open one of the bottles of beer and handed it to her before opening one for himself.

Sara switched her CD player on and turned it down low, not even noticing what was they were listening to.

"So, bad case?" He asked after they had each taken a couple of bites.

Sara shrugged and gulped down a mouthful of beer. "Some cases bother me." She said quietly, not looking at Nick.

"I'd noticed." He replied gently. "Brass said that you managed to get the foster kids to open to you."

"I guess."

"He said that they'd all just ignored him but when you went it..."

"I know what it's like."

"What?"

"Being in foster care. Living with strangers. Moving from house to house every few weeks."

"You were in foster care?"

Sara nodded.

"I didn't know."

"No one does."

They sat in silence, Sara looking down at her bottle, Nick looking at Sara.

"My mom killed my dad. I was twelve."

Nick didn't quite know what to say. "I'm sorry." He replied.

"Don't be, he deserved it." In all the time Nick had known Sara, he had never heard her say that someone deserved to die.

"Why?"

"What?" She asked in confusion.

"Why did he deserve it?"

"Because he beat my mom, because he screamed at her, because he raped her, every day. And because he did the same to me."

Nick's heart dropped, he always had his suspicions about Sara, after years of watching her reactions to certain cases but the reality of it was difficult to stomach.

"He sexually abused you?"

Sara nodded. Nick's mind drifted back to memories of his own childhood, of the night where everything changed.

"I just wish I could forget about it."

"You can't, you've just got to accept it. But forgetting it doesn't work, trust me."

Sara looked up, frowning at his words. "How do you know?"

Nick looked down at his beer now, while Sara watched him. "I was molested by a babysitter when I was nine."

"Did you ever tell anyone?" She asked in a hushed voice.

"Only Catherine, a few years ago."

"I never told anyone. Even after my mom killed him, a police officer interviewed me. Asked me why she'd done it, I didn't tell him what he'd been doing to us."

"It's not an easy topic to bring up."

"Why didn't you tell your parents?"

"I thought they'd be angry, that they'd blame me. And then, so many years had passed that I thought it was too late to tell them, that there was no point in hurting them about something that was in the past."

"I didn't tell my mom because I thought she's be angry with me." Sara confessed. "I thought she'd take his side. When she killed him, she wasn't protecting me, she was protecting herself."

The pizza lay on the coffee table forgotten.

"I tried to forget about it for a long time, that's how I know that it doesn't work."

Sara smiled slightly. "I told myself it never happened until I was sixteen then one night I couldn't lie to myself anymore."

"Same, except I was twenty. I was in college, I read this newspaper article about the effects of child abuse while I was waiting for a class to start. It had a list of the effects, it was like the article was describing me. I just got up and walked out of the lecture hall, went back to my room and got drunk, didn't go out for days." Nick said sighing.

"I'd just started at Harvard, I went out and I got a bit drunk, slept with this guy, can't even remember his name but it brought back a lot of memories. I started having nightmares about it."

Sara took another drink of her beer. "Has it ever got any easier for you?"

Nick nodded. "It took time but yeah, eventually it got better."

"For me it's got worse. Every case we see..." She shook her head slightly.

"It will get better Sara."

"Will it?"

"Yeah."

"I really hope it does because I can't take much more than this."

Nick reached over and placed his hand on Sara's. "It will Sara, I promise."


End file.
